Indian Institute of Management / Louis Kahn:

Architect: B.V. Doshi (Vastu Shilpa Consultants)

Campus Area: 100 acres
Built Up area: 54,000 m
Year of Completion: 1983
The campus is a destination and a pilgrimage for students of architecture and practicing
architects, with the architecture of the academic and administrative blocks becoming a
case study.
Some of the features of IIM-B are three storied hallways, open quadrangles with ample
area for plants, ample sun light entering through pergolas, geometrical roofs and slits in
the roof and rough texture finish. These features provide IIM-B distinctive characteristic
which varies with time of the day and with the seasons. The stone texture allows the
Climbing Ivy or Kalati (stone climber as called in Kannada) to grow to hug the wall, which
adds to the already infinite greenery and is very suitable for Bangalores Climate.
While Louis Kahn was designing the National Assembly Building in Bangladesh in 1962, he
was approached by an admiring Indian architect, Balkrishna Doshi, to design the 60 acre
campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India. Much like his
project in Bangladesh, he was faced with a culture enamored in tradition, as well as an
arid desert climate. For Kahn, the design of the institute was more than just efficient
spatial planning of the classrooms; he began to question the design of the educational
infrastructure where the classroom was just the first phase of learning for the students.
In 1961, a visionary group of industrialists collaborated with the Harvard Business School
to create a new school focused on the advancement of specific professions to advance
Indias industry. Their main focus was to create a new school of thought that incorporated
a more western-style of teaching that allowed students to participate in class discussions
and debates in comparison to the traditional style where students sat in lecture
throughout the day.

It was Balkrishna Doshi that believed Louis Kahn would be able to envision a new, modern
school for Indias best and brightest. Kahns inquisitive and even critical view at the
methods of the educational system influenced his design to no longer singularly focus on
the classroom as the center of academic thought. The classroom was just the formal
setting for the beginning of learning; the hallways and Kahns Plaza became new centers
for learning. The conceptual rethinking of the educational practice transformed a school
into an institute, where education was a collaborative, cross-disciplinary effort occurring
in and out of the classroom.

In much of the same ways that he approached the design of the National Assembly
Building in Bangladesh, he implemented the same techniques in the Indian Institute of
Management such that he incorporated local materials (brick and concrete) and large
geometrical faade extractions as homage to Indian vernacular architecture. It was Kahns
method of blending modern architecture and Indian tradition into an architecture that
could only be applied for the Indian Institute of Management. The large faade omissions
are abstracted patterns found within the Indian culture that were positioned to act as light
wells and a natural cooling system protecting the interior from Indias harsh desert
climate. Even though the porous, geometric faade acts as filters for sunlight and
ventilation, the porosity allowed for the creation of new spaces of gathering for the
students and faculty to come together.

Together, Kahns rethinking of the traditional principles of Indias educational system
along with a group of ambitious industrialists helped create one of the most sought after,
influential, and elite business schools in the world. Unfortunately, Kahn was unable to see
his design come to fruition as he had died in New York City in 1974 before the project was
finished. However, there is no question whether or not his design had completely
transformed the way in which modern architecture establishes itself in ones culture.